Sydney bushfire haze ‘public health emergency’

LOS ANGELES: During a decade as a janitor at a US border station, Tom Kiefer gathered the trash left behind by thousands of undocumented immigrants, piecing together the histories of those who arrived seeking a better life.

Everyday objects from clothes, medicine and toys to handwritten letters were confiscated by officials as dangerous or “non-essential” items,

leaving photography student Kiefer to sift through fragments of their owners’ struggles.

“El Sueno Americano/the American Dream”, at Los Ange

les’s Skirball Cultural Centre through March, displays more than 100 photographs of these remnants, which the artist collected in secret at the Ajo, Arizona station between 2003 and 2014.

From a distance, many of the works look like abstract modern art, but peer more closely and the contents become clear: in one, dozens of syringes and cartons containing pills and ointments are carefully laid out across a bright yellow canvas.

Close by, around 50 toothbrushes -- some extremely worn-out and filthy -- are arranged on a blue background.

Another photograph captures cell phones of all shapes, sizes and technologies spanning the decade.

For Dominga Rodriguez, a 48-year-old who crossed through the desert from Mexico’s Oaxaca state almost 30 years ago, it is easy to picture the faces of these items’ owners.

“It’s emotional because I also came in the same way,” she said.

SYDNEY: Australia’s biggest city is facing a “public health emergency” over the bushfire smoke that has choked Sydney for weeks, leading doctors warned Monday after hospitals reported a dramatic spike in casualty department visits.

Hundreds of climate change-fuelled bushfires have been raging across Australia for months, with efforts to contain a “mega-blaze” burning north of Sydney destroying an estimated 20 homes overnight and fires near Perth threatening towns.

More than 20 medical groups including the Royal Australasian College of Physicians -- which represents 25,000 doctors and trainees -- released a joint statement Monday calling on Australia’s government to address the toxic air pollution.

“The air pollution in NSW is a public health emergency,” the Climate and Health Alliance said.

“Smoke from bushfires has produced air pollution of up to 11 times the base ‘hazardous’ level in parts of Sydney and New South Wales.

“Bushfire smoke is particularly hazardous because of the high levels of tiny particles (PM2.5).”

The New South Wales state health department said it recorded a 48 percent increase in the number of people visiting hospital emergency rooms with respiratory problems in the week ending December 11 compared to the five-year average.

Visits spiked 80 percent on December 10, when air quality plummeted across Sydney prompting up to 20,000 residents to march in protest the following day.

The Climate and Health Alliance called on the government to take urgent action to curb emissions, saying climate change is worsening bushfires that are having “devastating impacts on human health”.

“The air pollution events resulting from bushfires will become more and more frequent and are a result of climate change,” it said.

“Our governments must act quickly to rapidly and deeply reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which we know are driving climate change.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week made a rare admission that climate change is one of the “factors” behind the fires, but defended Australia’s record on emissions reduction and failed to announce further measures to address the issue.